UWO

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UWO Saves The Bus Pass

Earlier this week, I posted about the referendum at the U of WO which would decide the fate of the school’s undergraduate bus pass.  Good news: Common sense prevailed.  By a margin of 94% to 6%, the students voted to renew the bus pass deal with London Transit.

More interestingly, the voter turnout for what I described as a poorly timed and even more poorly advertised referendum was about 60%.  The funny thing about that is the UWO Students’ Council elections last month, which are far more publicized and hyped, had about a 34% turnout.  Either students are really into saving money or they couldn’t care less about which of the very similar candidates becomes the figurehead leader of the student government.

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Save the Bus Pass, Save the World

In case you haven’t been paying microscopically close attention to the news at the U of WO, there’s a referendum that will decide the future of the undergraduate bus pass.  I say “microscopic” attention because the USC has let this slip under the radar.

Long story short, vote YES to keep the bus pass (at the rate of $135 per year) or vote no and go it alone.  The USC will consider it a decision of “no” if less than 5500 votes are cast in total or “no” gets more votes than YES.

I’ve done some maths on this and the new bus pass rate will pay for itself after 50 rides (at the LTC adult rate of $2.75 per ride).  Fifty should be easy to cover for anyone that doesn’t live within a 5-minute walk of campus.  Basically, voting YES is the only real sensible way to go.

But what if you wanted more reasons?  Suppose you want to live within five minutes of campus but haven’t signed a lease yet so you wouldn’t need a bus pass.  (I guess that means you don’t plan on going downtown or to Masonville.)  I would put pen to paper soon because those places close to campus will be in much higher demand.  I would imagine a smart landlord would be able to pull in more than $135 over twelve months more than he is now.  You’ll buy a bus pass from the LTC, you say?  At $70 per month it’s only $560 plus tax.  Maybe you have a car and will drive to campus everyday.  Good news, you can get a parking permit (with no guarantee that you’ll get a spot you like) for only $638.

So vote YES.  Save some cash.  Be environmentally friendly.  Don’t freeze to death in winter.  Pick whatever reason you need, just vote YES.

Click here to vote.

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What’s More Embarrassing About This Photo?

Campbell09WilsonCup

Is it the fact that Western Mustang’s coach Brad Campbell can’t hide how upset he is with his team’s performance on Saturday anymore or the fact that I’m excited that I was on the cover of the campus newspaper?  Campbell is in the foreground doing a classic facepalm and I’m in the top-left corner (the brown-haired guy with the beard).

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CIS Basketball Finals Set and Ontario is Fuming

With all the league championships and last chance qualifiers decided on Saturday night, the CIS have announced the rankings for this weekend’s Canadian University Basketball championships.  Of course, this being sports run by a faceless committee (e.g. the BCS), fans and pundits were crying foul within minutes of the bracket being announced.

Here are the CIS Final 8 that will battle it out for national supremacy (and how they qualified): Continue reading →

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OUA Basketball Final Preview – Carleton vs. Western

I’m not entirely sure that my bosses or the OUA would want me to say this, but this Saturday’s basketball game is entirely meaningless.  After all, by winning the OUA West division title, the Western Mustangs have already clinched a spot in the CIS National Championships.  Meanwhile, the #1 ranked Carleton Ravens are hosting the nationals so they were in even if they didn’t rout the OUA East division en route to their eighth crown in ten years.  Still, while this is just a glorified exhibition game, we could be looking at a national championship preview.

Actually, I shouldn’t say that my bosses don’t want me saying the above because one of them pointed this fact out to me.  In fact, if the game wasn’t in London at Alumni Hall or it conflicted with the hockey game later that night, we wouldn’t be broadcasting it at all.  The fact remains that we are, so here’s a preview of tomorrow’s big OUA Men’s Basketball Final.

#1 Carleton Ravens
The Ravens come into action on Saturday as the heavy favourites. They have decimated the whole of the OUA field this season. After losing their first game of the year to Windsor, the Ravens have run up a streak of 23 straight wins which includes a 79-74 win against the Mustangs at Alumni Hall.

The key to the game for Carleton is to use their perfection on offense. The Ravens are the strongest offensive team in the OUA averaging 8 more points per game than any other team in Ontario. Western’s emphasis on rebounding and solid defending in the paint will only get them so far. It will be the ability of Carleton to drown them the Mustangs with offense that could allow them to lift the Wilson Trophy at game’s end. The man leading that attack will be the East division player of the year Stuart Turnbull and first team all-star Aaron Doornekamp.

#4 Western Mustangs
The Mustangs find themselves heading to the national championships after a surprise appearance last season. This year, the Mustangs started and finished the season ahead of the pack in the OUA West. Unfortunately for the Mustangs, they haven’t beaten the Ravens since 2001.

The Mustangs need to win the battles along the glass to pick up the W at the end of the day. Keenan Jeppesen and Brad Smith are two of the OUA’s most dominant big men and can control a game when “el fuego.” OUA West defensive player of the year is going to play an important part of the Mustangs defensive scheme when he tries to shut down Turnbull and will have to be as good on the offensive end of the floor as Wednesday when he was 6-of-10 from beyond the arc.

Of course, you can listen to this game live on 94.9FM CHRW (in London) and at CHRWradio.com starting at about 1:55 PM on Saturday.  And you can spend the following hour-and-a-half wondering who thought it was a good idea to let me be a basketball commentator.

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UWO’s Vaughn Martin is NFL bound?

The CIS Blog and the London Free Press are reporting that Western Mustang’s defensive lineman Vaughn Martin has declared his eligibility for the 2009 NFL draft.  This is the sort of move that would tend to find its way on to our “What Were They Thinking?” board.

NFL rules state that a player must be three years removed from high school to be eligible.  The best players at that age are often the subject of rumours and speculation guessing if they will or won’t enter the draft.  CIS players are seldom even mentioned on an NFL team’s draft board let alone part of the media or scouting buzz leading up to the draft.  Hec Crighton (CIS outstanding player) award winners seldom get a sniff from NFL teams.  Jesse Lumsden was the most recent player looked at by the NFL with the Seattle Seahawks signing him after he went undrafted and cut him by the end of training camp.

That isn’t to say the same would happen to Martin.  But having watched him for three months in the fall, he’s one of Ontario’s better defensive linemen, perhaps slightly more adept as a run-stopper than a pass-rusher.  He isn’t, however, the top defensive tackle in Ontario and certainly not in Canada.  Since he’s not even close to the All-Canadian level, I doubt he would even get a training camp invite from most teams.

In two more years, with some more muscle and experience, he has all the makings of an All-Canadian DT.  He might even be good enough to win the Metras Award for Canada’s best down lineman.  Until then, Vaughn should keep his mind on the here and now.  The Mustangs have a legitimate chance to win the Vanier Cup next season and distractions like this can only hurt their chances when their top defensive lineman is more upset about not getting drafted than missing a tackle or losing a game this fall.

Update: Vaughn Martin Drafted

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A New USC Prez, Daytona, and Assorted Randomness

Well, it’s been an interesting week around here at Lowdown HQ.  A monsoon washed through London leaving the parts of campus along the Thames flooded.  We taped a show but we couldn’t get a hold of the interviewee we wanted.  There’s a new boss in town at UWO that I unfortunately won’t work for.  And tomorrow I’m due to colour commentate basketball which is only a problem considering that I know more about BASEketball than basketball. Continue reading →

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Behind The Scenes: Rock The Rink

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It’s not often that I feel compelled to write up a random blog post based on a simple occurance in everyday life.  But when I think about it, as a campus radio personality, everyday life for me tends to be fairly different from everyday life for most folks.  No offence, but this is the greatest line of work in the world and I’m a little disappointed that I won’t be able to continue when I graduate in 3 months’ time.

Anyway, back to the story at hand.  Friday night was “Rock the Rink” night at Western’s Thompson Arena.  Any fans who wore purple shirts got in for free and everyone else had to buy a purple shirt.  That made it a packed house at Thompson Arena, which is a pretty unusual occurrence, of about 700 people by most estimates.  Most teams try to do a white-out or a black-out or whatever team colour but I think this is the first time in recorded history that a hockey crowd was a sea of purple.  Add to this the fact that it was “Seniors Night” which meant there was a special pregame ceremony to honour all the graduating players before the game and this was geared up to be a special night. Continue reading →